


The Icarus Syndrome

by Messier_47



Series: langst [2]
Category: Voltron - Fandom, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Depression, Hurt No Comfort, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Sad Lance (Voltron), langest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 11:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9724043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messier_47/pseuds/Messier_47
Summary: He smiled, closed his eyes and thought, “This is just like last time.”





	

He wants to fly. He wants to fly before anyone can tell him no (there was something instinctive about that boy). He runs with his arms outstretched and his eyes dazzle at the sight of stars (his hair flows windswept even if there’s no wind they whisper about spirits ruffling his hair like some blessed boy)(like some cursed boy). He breaks his leg jumping off of roof tops and promises his mama never again. He lied. That boy wants to fly (like the air was his before anyone else’s. The the sky was his birthright. They say he got his head in the clouds and they’re right).

 

He joins the Garrison and they don’t like how he flies (a little too free)(too much like a bird)(not enough soldier in the boy they whisper). His friends are a little too attached to the ground. They say, “Lance slow down.”

 

He dreams of falling and falls in love with the rush. He dreams of ocean waves and doesn’t fear the end. There is freedom here, he thinks, freedom in the fall. The rise. The flight. He can’t stop and they say the boy can’t master it. They don’t know the sky was never there to be mastered.

 

He meets a boy on fire, flirts with the danger and is scorned.

 

“That’s Keith,” they whisper and he listens, “he owns the sky.”

 

He doesn’t, the boy wants to say, no one can own the sky.

 

And yet he is fire and he blazes across the boards and the Garrison Masters love him for his control, his power, his skill. They say that boy is golden. They don’t talk about Lance anymore.

 

And he’s angry. Of course he’s angry. Keith set the bars too high and now he can’t fly free. He can barely fly at all.

 

Cargo Pilot, they say and he starts to drown. He feels the weight of chains, the last glimmer of a free sky and he wants to flyhewantstoflyhewantstoflyhewantstofly-

 

Like myth golden boy is gone. Golden boy with all his flame and ire is gone. Lance is free. He flies.

 

They whisper, “He has no right.”

 

They whisper, “Still too free. Still not good enough.”

 

They whisper, “If only golden boy hadn’t gone.”

 

He dreams of falling more often now. The ocean waves scares him. He rolls his shoulders and thinks something wrong. Something is terribly wrong.

-

He meets Blue and they fly. They really fly. He can hear her laughing at the freedom of it and he laughs with he because finally -finally- he’s flying.

 

He goes up into the sky and he wants to shout at the people in his cockpit, ‘Look! Don’t you see? The sky is too big to be owned by either you or me.’

 

But he doesn’t and he guess that’s the price. That’s fine by him because now he gets to fly.

 

And then there was fire. And flame. A Red Lion worshipped as better given to the best and no, Lance wants to scream, there is no better or best. The sky is free.

 

They don’t listen. No one really understands. He forgives them because the lesson built into his bones can’t be so easily understood. He tried.

 

Hunk just looked at him funny.

 

Pidge laughed at his ‘naivety’.

 

Allura didn’t get it.

 

Coran never understood.

 

Shiro lied in agreement.

 

Keith stared and said, “Pretty big words for the Garrison’s worst pilot to say. You think that’s an excuse?”

 

And it hurt. Like the sun burning him alive. Like fire touching his skin. Like hot wax dripping down his spine.

 

(On Earth things fall at the gravitational weight of ten meters per second squared. By the time anyone noticed, Lance was already too fast for anyone to save.)

 

It was in a battle. There was a battleship. Lance flew. There was a beam of light. Lance fell.

 

He didn’t hear his friends screaming.

  
He smiled, closed his eyes and thought, “This is just like last time.”


End file.
